Tobacco Beetles and Frozen Cigars

Craftman’s Bench Deluxe Lambert Humidor

Before we jump into the Frozen Cigar Issue, we wanted to point out the following. Cigars are not meant to be stored for any extended period of time frozen… period. Cigars need to be stored in a humidor. That being stated most cigars are frozen at least once before your have them, hand made or machine made. Most Cigars actually are greeted with the freezer at some point in their life. Every reputable cigar factory takes very aggressive measures to keep tobacco beetles out of your cigars including fumigating, depleting entire rooms of oxygen to suffocate the insects and most commonly freezing.

This is done for good reason. A Tobacco Beetle infestation can ruin the name of a otherwise excellent cigar manufacturer. The technical name of a Tobacco Beetle is Lasioderma serricorne. Wikipedia has an excellent article about this specific cigar eating bug.

Here we are in the deep winter talking about the Tobacco Beetle, a bug that cannot survive in a cold environment. The Cigar eating beetle can live only 2 to 4 weeks, and only can live in a humid climate with temperatures above 74 degrees. Adult beetles measure only three millimeters long, but now is as good of a time as any to discuss this topic because summer, though it feels 1000 years away is literally around the corner. If this nasty bug shows up inside a gifted cigar from a friend which you stored in your humidor then you MUST take the following action before this terrible scourge of the cigar world launches a full fledged invasion of your valuable cigars. The beetle is literally a monster and can destroy hundreds of dollars worth of cigars within a matter of days if left to their own devices.

A – Empty the humidor and place each cigar in zipped plastic freezer bag, not a sandwich bag.
B – You must then tightly close each bag and place them in your freezer.
C – After 72 hours, remove those bags that contain your cigars and place them into the fridge.
D – After a full day of sitting in your fridge then move the cigars back to your humidor and enjoy.
E – Clean the humidor from any remaining beetles or eggs.

To be fair this should never happen, nor should one have to resort to the above steps. The problem might be that the the humidor was too humid and warm. Make sure it’s not in direct sunlight and gain some control over your humidification system because this problem will reoccur otherwise.